When doing SEO, most people focus on content and backlinks, and it's easy to overlook the importance of architecture in SEO. In fact, as the skeleton of the human skeleton, the architecture is extremely important. If you need to increase traffic and conversions, architecture is often one of the most effective SEO tools.
What is Architecture?
Architecture, in the simplest terms, is how pages are organized and navigated. Schema is built through navigation and links, but is also related to other elements such as URLs, breadcrumbs, classified pages, sitemaps, and more. Good architecture helps users and search engines find what they're looking for. Schema also helps define the relevance and importance of content. It can direct users and bots to your most critical pages and provide signals about your content. In short, architecture will make yours easy to use and understand.
The importance of architecture for SEO
So, how exactly does architecture affect a better ranking in search engines?Here are four reasons why architecture is essential for SEO.
1. Improve crawlability and indexability.
Before search engines can rank your content for the appropriate keywords, they first need to understand what your different pages are about.
To do this, search engine spiders crawl the content on your website and then store the information in the search engine's index.
When you have a logical information schema and internal linking structure, search engines can effectively position all of your content and build an accurate one for your purpose.
2. Allocate linked assets.
Link assets refer to the weight passed from the linked page to the linked page. This is important because the more authority a page has, the easier it is to rank for it. An orderly internal linking system creates a pathway for linked assets to be passed from one page to another.
3. Establish topic authority.
By grouping together content that is similar in the topic, you can significantly increase your authority on a given topic.
Doing so allows you to show that you** are approaching the topic in considerable breadth and depth. Once search engines see you as the authority on a particular topic**, it's much easier to rank for relevant keywords.
Fourth, create a better user experience.
Of course, a coherent structure isn't just about making it easier for search engine spiders to find it. It is also the foundation of a positive user experience. A well-structured ** makes it easy for users to find the products, categories, and information they need in just a few clicks, greatly enhancing the user experience.
How to buildArchitecture
To put it simply, when you build a great architecture, you'll see an increase in your traffic, visitor engagement, and conversions. So how do you build a truly SEO-friendly architecture?
1. Create an intuitive navigation menu.
One of the most important design considerations for any ** is the top-level navigation menu, which gives search engines and users another snapshot of your ** level of information.
*The goal of navigation should be to help users find what they're looking for as quickly and easily as possible. No matter how big yours is, visitors should be able to navigate to their desired content with three or four clicks. If it's hard to move around on your **, visitors will just leave.
Your top-level navigation bar should contain links to all of the main category pages, which is why it's important to limit your primary category to only what is necessary. Too many top-level categories can lead to confusing navigation menus that are difficult to use.
For thousands of pages, such as an ecommerce store with a large inventory, it's often a good idea to implement faceted navigation. Giving users the ability to filter their searches across your site can significantly reduce the time it takes them to find what they're looking for.
2. Breadcrumb path.
Adding breadcrumbs to the page can make the structure clearer. Breadcrumbs are clickable links, usually at the top of a page or article. The breadcrumbs reflect the structure of your **. They help users determine where they are on you. They can improve your user experience and SEO.
3. Make use of HTML sitemaps.
Nowadays, almost everyone understands the importance of XML sitemaps. But HTML sitemaps built into web pages are becoming less and less common. The HTML sitemap exists on your site (not in an XML file) and can be read by visitors and can provide clues about your structure and topic for both visitors and search bots. HTML sitemaps are usually most effective on larger sites, although the structure of these may not be as obvious, or crawl paths are not perfectly optimized. But even a smaller one can be useful, as HTML sitemaps are often helpful for visitors as well.
4. Use the hub page.
A hub page is an important overview page that can cover a broad topic or taxonomy, which connects to sub-categories and more specific topics. Hub pages serve a variety of purposes:1They provide a quick overview of the topic2Answer the questions that users may be most concerned about3Links to important subtopics and popular products4Generally more user-friendly than normal category pages5Helps you establish topic weights for a topic.
The best hub pages have a large number of relevant links pointing to them, and they can pass that link authority (pagerank) to all the child topics it links to. Generally speaking, category pages often become organic hub pages because they often already have a lot of organic link authority. The key is to reinforce your category pages with subcategories or posts with additional information beyond the product listing. Any relevant and important page will help your visitors move on to the next page.
5. Pay attention to internal link building.
If you think of your ** as a building, then the internal link is like a corridor and staircase that connects not * * rooms and floors. There are two main types of internal links you can use: navigational links and contextual links. Navigation links appear on your home page, navigation menu, and footer. Contextual links are links that you embed in your content to direct users to some relevant information.
The key to using internal links strategically is to ensure that you frequently link to your highest-priority pages from the most authoritative pages (i.e., from the ones that get the most high-quality backlinks). For most, these pages are the homepage and one or two high-performing content. Linking from these pages allows your priority pages to gain second-hand link assets, which can improve their ranking power.
For example, if your blog is particularly important to your business, it makes sense to link to it from your homepage and top-level navigation menu. Doing so will pass the link assets to your blog section and, in turn, to the various blog posts within it.
Additionally, you should embed internal links in keyword-rich anchor text. This helps search engines better understand the content of the linked page. That said, if you're linking to the same page multiple times on different pages, it's a good idea to change your anchor text slightly to avoid being seen as spam.
Optimizing your architecture to make it as good for SEO as possible will give you unexpected positive results.